2020 WHC

Only partially and not of benefit to e.g India etc. The new rules would seem to hit ANY country wanting to put forward more than 1 NEW Nomination, however many or few inscribed sites they might already have. All the detailed rules thereafter only apply if the other Nominations exceed 35 in the year and may not even come into play if the main new rule is strictly applied. See Para 61 of the Operational guidelines - http://whc.unesco.org/en/guidelines/"As from 2 February 2018:a) examine one complete nominations per State Party,b) set at 35 the annual limit on the number of nominations it will review, inclusive of nominations deferred and referred by previous sessions of the Committee, extensions (except minor modifications of limits of the property), transboundary and serial nominations,c) the following order of priorities will be applied in case the overall annual limit of 35 nominations is exceeded: (list of 8 priority rules)"

"As from Feb 2 2018" means that they apply to nominations made AFTER the closing date for those to be evaluated during 2018 and first half of 2019 for consideration by the 2019 WHC. i.e they will first apply to nominations to be considered at the 2020 WHC.Interesting that the max of 35 includes Re/Deferrals - but it isn't made clear whether the max of 1 pa also includes re/deferrals from previous years - since it applies for the 35 then presumably it applies here also ? if so that WOULD cause some problems since such de/referrals would come AFTER the Nominations for the following year had already been submitted.

ok, thank you, i didn't read it before, it's interesting. It will be harder for the countries to inscribe a site (competition between different sites Inside a country or not?), but probably fair. Thks for the link!

More than 8 priorities.In the case of Iles Marquises, it couldn't be part of the 8th priority considering it's in the Pacific? Maybe France will cheat with these rules? lol...But seriously, imagine New Caledonia become independant this year, the previous french inscribed site (2017) won't be considered like a french site. It's the same with Catalonia in Spain, or Scotland, and so on...The states won't give the priority to Iles Marquises and Catalonia in these examples...Maybe they will have exemptions...or not :)

Last point concerning: "d) the States Parties co-authors of a transboundary or transnational serial nomination can choose, amongst themselves and with a common understanding, the State Party which will be bearing this nomination; and this nomination can be registered exclusively within the ceiling of the bearing State Party"...Considering Mercantour, if they give the nomination to Monaco, does it mean France and Italy won't count this property in their WH list?

if they give the nomination to Monaco, does it mean France and Italy won't count this property in their WH list?

It will count for all 3, but the annual nomination "ceiling" will be full, therefore Monaco will not be able to nominate an additional site. Its too bad because Monaco has so much WHS potential! Here lies the problem, this means Italy and France will inevitably have 2 or more nominations in some years. Europe will have a distinct advantage under these new operational guidelines, while also limiting prolific states like China, India, Turkey, and Iran which many would inevitably surpass some of Europe's leading countries like Italy, France, Spain, Germany, and the UK.

Highly tenuous at this point. Yet, I don't doubt a good number of these nominations are more or less confirmed for 2020. The other half are projected for 2020, but as we know delays happen all the time, and reports are often overly confident.

The Ancient Waterfront Towns in the South of Yangtze River (China)"The ancient town of Jiangnan Water Town plans to complete the application for the preparation of the World Heritage in 2020 to meet the inspection and assessment of experts from the international organizations."